Over $2000 donated so far for scholarship funds for NCDD Seattle – more needed!

We launched our scholarship fund drive for the 2012 NCDD conference on Monday, and proud to say that our community has contributed $2,075 so far! We greatly appreciate the support of our earliest donors.

Our goal is to raise $15,000 from our community to help people from diverse backgrounds make it to NCDD Seattle who may not otherwise be able to join us. Please help out at whatever level you’re able to, at www.ncdd.org/funddrive.

Here is a run-down of our generous donors so far… and some of their reasons for contributing:

An anonymous donor contributed $1,000 (I know who you are, though — and I’m sending you a special THANK YOU!). Our private donor said: “It’s important to enhance diversity at the conference, plus give those who have never attended one of our national or regional meetings the opportunity to interact and learn from this amazing collection of professionals.”

John Spady, Civic Entrepreneur for Dick Spady Legacy Projects and CommunityForumsNetwork.org, contributed a generous $500, commenting that “a contribution to the NCDD Scholarship Fund is a down payment on a better civic future for everyone.”

Peggy Holman, Author of Engaging Emergence: Turnning Upheaval into Opportunity, contributed $250, adding that she thinks “NCDD’s work is so critical! The more people who know how to effectively engage, the better off we all are.”

Tim Bonnemann of Intellitics, Inc. was the first person to respond to our call for donations for the scholarship fund, with a generous contribution of $100.

Contributing $25 each were Polly Riddims of Fusion Partnerships, Inc. (our Logistics Manager for the conference), Myles Alexander, Project Coordinator of the Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy, K-State University, and Joan Binkow.

A couple of our donors noted having received scholarships for NCDD conferences in the past, and we appreciate them paying it forward! One of them commented that:

Thanks to a scholarship offered to me 10 years ago, I was able to attend the first NCDD conference. I have since attended every NCDD national conference and continue to see the NCDD community as the single, most resource-ful community of practitioners that has helped the work of dialogue, deliberation and civic engagement evolve into a mature field of theory and practice. I want to do what I can to help others tap into and become a part of this wonderful community.

Ruthy Kohorn Rosenberg of Brown University noted:

It is so important that as many people as possible from as many backgrounds and walks of life are included in conversations as we all learn the skills to be constructive, creative, effective and respectful.

And Mary Gelinas, managing director of Gelinas James Inc., commented:

How we interact has everything to do with the world we are creating. The more people who know how to do this effectively, inclusively, and wisely the greater our chances are for creating a desired future. NCDD is an important part of helping us learn this.

Please visit www.ncdd.org/funddrive today and contribute what you can to help us build a strong scholarship fund. Scholarships serve to increase diversity among conference participants. We plan to use the scholarship funds we’re able to collect to assist young people and those with lower incomes with registration and lodging costs. We’d also like to use some scholarship funds to help get public administrators with tight budgets to the conference, as we know their involvement and knowledge is highly valued by conference attendees.

Sandy Heierbacher is the director and co-founder of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD). Sandy has an M.A. in International Management from SIT Graduate Institute, and also serves as a Research Deputy for the Kettering Foundation. Click here for a list of articles and resources authored by Sandy.